Fire Risk Assessment Methodology

The benefit of applying a fire risk assessment as a decision tool will vary between companies and projects. In many cases, a formalized fire risk assessment is not necessary because the solution is relatively obvious based on design standards and appropriate fire protection is either applied or not applied. Fire risk assessments may be necessary  

The methodology outlined in this chapter follows that in Cuidelines for Chemical Process Quantitative Risk Analysis (CCPS, 2000). NFPA 550 Cu/de to the Fire Safety Concept Tree provides another example of fire risk assessment. There are three keys to a successful fire risk assessment  

---

Fire risk assessment is made in order to determine the overall value of decreasing fire hazard in a particular scenario. The level of fire risk that is acceptable for a situation is, normally, a societal, and not a technical, decision. Therefore, fire hazard assessments are generally more common than fire risk assessments. The NFPA Research Foundation has undertaken a project to develop a methodology for fire risk assessment. It has done this by studying four cases in detail upholstered furniture in residential environments, wire and cable in concealed spaces in hotels and motels, floor coverings in offices and wall coverings in restaurants. 

The methodology for conducting a fire risk assessment is illustrated in Figure 6-1. Each step in the methodology is described further in this section. 

PAS 79 2011. Fire risk assessment—Guidance and a recommended methodology. (PAS 79 2011). British Standards Institution. 

Fleming, K. N. et al., 1979, A Methodology for Risk Assessment of Major Fires and Its Application to an HTGR Plant, General Atomic GA-A15401. 

Roger, C., J. L. Boccio, and M. A. Azarm, 1985, Evaluation of Current Methodology Employed in Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Fire Events at Nuclear Power Plants, BNL report A-3710, February. 

ABSTRACT The fire protection and Safety in urban property is a sensitive and important topic, even more so in the context of older buildings that tend to be more vulnerable. In this case, fire risk analysis needs to be carried out, in order to ascertain safety levels, weaknesses, and hence adequate risk mitigation measures. The application of the assessment methodology of fire risk proposed, MARIEE, can be of high interest in developing a classification that can be applied to new and old buildings or those that will be targeted for rehabilitation processes. 

PROBLEM DEFINITION. This is achieved through plant visits and discussions with risk analysts. In the usual application of THERP, the scenarios of interest are defined by the hardware orientated risk analyst, who would specify critical tasks (such as performing emergency actions) in scenarios such as major fires or gas releases. Thus, the analysis is usually driven by the needs of the hardware assessment to consider specific human errors in predefined, potentially high-risk scenarios. This is in contrast to the qualitative error prediction methodology described in Section 5.5, where all interactions by the operator with critical systems are considered from the point of view of their risk potential. 

Applying U.S. standards or safety methodology to product assessment increases the risks of nonconformity because there are fundamental technical and interpretation differences between the U.S. and EU views (ANSI/UL vs. EN/IEC). In the area of safety philosophy, the U.S. test agencies, known as Nationally Recognized Test Laboratory s (NRTL), stress fire and tests, whereas, the European bodies focus on shock and construction. Both camps generally consider all safety... 

---